Australia’s dietary guidelines and the environmental impact of food “from paddock to plate”

To the Editor: Selvey and Carey infer that the consumption of imported seafood by Australian consumers is evidence that Australian seafood production is unsustainable.1 However, trade in canned and frozen seafood is extensive because these products are stable and because of the comparative advantage of production between countries. The same process results in Australia’s reliance on imported electronics, clothes and cars — it does not mean there is an unsustainable supply of the ingredients necessary to produce these goods in Australia. The inference that seafood trade arises from unsustainable production is inconsistent with trends in both global and domestic seafood price indices, which have declined relative to terrestrial protein sources since 1990.2,3